"you've been in prison for over a decade and just now we realized we wrongfully imprisoned you we will let you out but ONLY IF you agree to not sue us for wrongful imprisonment" this is absolute insanity
Look up the "Norfolk 4". You won't believe any of the true story. One guy was sentenced to prison & he had 30 witnesses at his birthday party. Nope he was convicted of being at a murder at the time.
Look up the Norfolk 4. You won't believe any of it is actually true. One of the men was at a bar celebrating his birthday with 30+ witnesses. Nope. He was convicted of being at a murder scene & sent to prison.
Until they start throwing prosecutors in jail for these false convictions nothing will ever change. If the people responsible are not under the knife then they basically just get away with it and the taxpayers pay for the mistake. This man was robbed of half of his life and no amount of money will replace the time and possible experiences lost.
@@thomasdexter9646 If they are still alive, though at a minimum they should be stripped of the state pension and benefits for this, and this be paid to the victim instead.
Title 18 sec 242 I believe provided the remedies for prosecutor to face charges. The state is thumming their noses at wrongful convicted prisoners by making a law caping monetary damages.
if you are directly and knowingly responsible for falsely convicting someone like this you should be locked up and serve the exact same amount of time they served.
that would just incentivize lawyers and judges to participate in vigilante justice...or flat out conspired with cops or prison guards to. Murder and hide the bodies if anyone they think could cost them down the line. Keep in mind that we already have police departments with secret graveyards like the 215 bodies found behind a Mississippi jail.
@@ErwinDecoene I agree. If a thief steals $100 he doesn't then get a full pardon if he gives it back. So if someone steals 44 years of someone elses life, they shouldn't just get away with repaying the 44 years. That merely repays what they owe. They then need to serve some kind of punishment for their crime.
I would love to see a trial of a prosecutor who wrongfully convicted someone. It woul be interesting to hear the defense of why they did not turn over evidence.
The only prosecutor in American history to ever go to jail for knowingly concealing exculpatory evidence only served *one day* behind bars. Seriously; ONE DAY. Look it up. The man he wrongfully convicted served *decades* in prison.
Yeah, some of them do things so blatantly illegal that they need to face justice. Years ago there was one case I saw on Dateline where a guy (with help from the Innocence project) successfully appealed his conviction for murder and got a new trial, where it was handed to a different prosecutor. That prosecutor spent weeks digging through the evidence, and then consulting with the innocence project. She then held a press conference not only dropping the charges, but publicly calling out the last prosecutor on all the blatantly wrong things he did to win a conviction against an innocent man.
@@shadowninja6689 unfortunately, even in horrific cases they pull the immunity card. The newer prosecutors would need to soul search and bring charges to any living prosecutor that jailed an innocent person.
They are likely all retired by now. 44 years? Yea, they aren’t working at the job anymore. I would definitely check their entire records, though. Anything they touched is now suspect.
I’m firmly of the opinion that prosecutors and/or police who break the law to convict someone by either withholding exculpatory or planting evidence, should be forced to go to prison with the same penalty of the falsely convicted person. States should have to pay out $1M for each year served as compensation. Pretty sure that alone would help cut down on wrongful convictions.
Decent chance the majority of the people involved are either in their 80s or 90s or no longer here... In this case there is likely few people left to punish
@@tallthinkev and that is enough to pay for the horrible health care, the rapes and assaults by other inmates and guards, the loss of a family and children, the loss of reputation, the loss of .... (insert almost anything you take for granted) ? I think not the $1million comes in pretty short.
Not a penny of the money, nor a word in the apology letter is enough, not by a long shot. So glad to hear he has been paid and hopefully will be able to begin his life
His life is over, that money is going to end up with his siblings or any children he had before he went in. Or failing any of them existing, back in state coffers.
@@scottlemiere2024 Well my dad is 88, so health wise if the guy is good, he can have a pretty decent 20 years. It doesn't make up for the time lost, but making the best of a bad situation is easier with $25m in your pocket.
This is why EVERYONE involved in a court case should pay attention and take it VERY seriously. I can’t see how, as a member of a jury, I could ever put someone in jail even for a day without clear irrefutable evidence. When in doubt DON’T!!! They ruined this poor guy’s life.
I feel like you can't really blame the jury in this case. It sounds like the prosecution team withheld exculpatory evidence. Also I would point out that there are a lot of hall monitor type people out in the world that are all too happy to inflict punishment on people.
I wonder if the evidence that, "disappeared" was "disappeared" to cover for the real criminal. This entire case smells like a coverup for someone inside the system.😢
Certainly a possibility, since small towns tend to be incestuous (not literally). But it’s also true that cops are lazy and think they have some special ability to identify guilty people. (Evidence shows they’re no better than the general public.) The acronym FAN came about because of cops’ pattern of grabbing the First Available N… and making the “facts” fit their chosen subject. Prosecutors also get fixated on “winning” at any cost.
Longer than I've been alive, (31) ridiculous. Couldn't imagine spending even a couple weeks in PRISON, for something I didn't do. Let alone half a lifetime.
@@johndough23 There was gross misconduct that took away more than half of his life. He living in the despair at the bottom of a system that was willing to blatantly frame him. There is no amount of money that could possibly make up for that. And how tf did you do the math that $25M/44 > $2M?
@johndough23 I get that you're somehow being sarcastic. But the guy is 68, basically 70 years old now. Yeah 24 million is more than he would've ever made outside of prison. But this man has now spent 2/3 of his life in prison. It's basically all he knows. They took literally EVERY good year of this man's life and made him spend it behind bars. Like they said, there no amount of money that can makeup for this. If you weren't being sarcastic then idk wtf you're getting your numbers. Most ppl who just graduate high school make roughly just over a million in their lifetime. So yeah he basically got 20 million for pain and suffering. But he's not even gonna be able to enjoy it at this point. Hopefully he has some family he can give it to when he passes or he gives it to a good charity. So it doesn't just wind up going back to the crooked ass gov that did this.
I hear stories like this and shudder. I can't imagine being this man or his family. It's nice that they wrote him an apology but nothing can bring back those decades of his life. Try to imagine learning that evidence was hidden that put you, or at least kept you, in prison. Absolutely disgusting.
The payment should come from the prosecutor's office budget, not from general funds. Only when these things become painful to those who acted wrongly will things change.
Exactly, why don't prosecutors face any consequences when THEY lose in court??? The outcome of the case doesn't actually matter *if you don't face any consequences for losing!!!* I'll be a lot more willing to gamble at a casino *if losing didn't cost me anything!!!*
This man is 68 years old now, he was convicted at age 24. The best of his years robbed from him and gone. And he only get a bit over 500k per year wrongfully locked up. How disgusting. I would never wish this upon anyone. The best years of his life are gone.
Exactly. He's not going to get all the good moments back he missed even with 25 trillion dollars. He's 68. There is nothing that can be done about that. We can't even properly punish the responsible because if we do, exonerating and freeing the falsely imprisoned just becomes so much harder because they will do anything to stay free themselves.
For context in Canada there was a famous case of David Milgard who was convicted of the rape and murder of a nursing student in the 1970`s. DNA testing was not a thing yet. Blood type matching was done. Hair matching, visually under a microscope was as state of the art as it got. Millard was traveling with other young men who were coerced to testify against him. He escapes the death penalty by a year having just been abolished. Twenty five years in prison. The Crown had the fluid samples but even when DNA tests became available Millards mother along with innocence project type organization spent decades fighting in court to get the samples tested. The Crown opposed the motion and refused. Even when the costs would be paid by the family. Eventually the sample was DNA tested. It came back to a serial rapists who was serving a life sentence in prison. David was fully exonerated and given $25 million. Yes Candian and adjusted to inflation probably closer to fifty million. Twenty five million is light for 44 years. This man went to prison the year I was born. What is a fair amount? One billion? You can't buy back one second for a hundred billion dollars.
Probably on his last legs, so it's not going to get back all those lost years, but unfortunately that's the system and to think of all that tax payers money spent on keeping an innocent man in prison, on top of which the real perpetrator probably repeated his crimes over and over before getting caught, destroying the lives of others along the way. This demonstrates the cost of a flawed system and a failure of social justice to the cost of society at large.
The real problem is the prison industrial complex. It operates as a business and profits off of people being sent to prison. That's why they expanded the definition of felony to include non violent "crimes".
Typically not. Depends on the jurisdiction and the reasoning for the settlement/award though... Damages received for non-physical injury such as emotional distress, defamation and humiliation, although generally includable in gross income, are not subject to Federal employment taxes. Emotional distress recovery must be on account of (attributed to) personal physical injuries or sickness unless the amount is for reimbursement of actual medical expenses related to emotional distress that was not previously deducted under IRC Section 213. See Emerson v, Comr., T.C. Memo 2003-82 & Witcher v. Comr., T.C. Memo 2002-292. As a result of the amendment in 1996, mental and emotional distress arising from non-physical injuries are only excludible from gross income under IRC Section104(a)(2) only if received on account of physical injury or physical sickness. Punitive damages are not excludable from gross income, with one exception. The exception applies to damages awarded for wrongful death, where under state law, the state statute provides only for punitive damages in wrongful death claims. In these cases, refer to IRC Section 104(c) which allows the exclusion of punitive damages. Burford v. United States, 642 F. Supp. 635 (N.D. Ala. 1986).
What about punishment for the people that did this? I assume that they are retired or dead. If current members of these organizations testify in a case can a lawyer ask the witness if thier origination have a history of hiding evidence?
The sad thing is not only he suffered , his family, the vistim's family but justice as a whole. In that part everyone else suffered because I doubt that those involved stopped there, but also manipulated other cases. I believe the ones involved should repay the department of prisons the cost of keeping him incarcerated.
i lost 8 years of my life for something i didn't do. and every couple months they would say if you do this or that we will drop all charges. like probation and stuff. and i told them every time. i will spend the rest of my life in prison before i sign anything saying i did it. then out of the blue one person showed up that i haven't seen in 8 years showed up walked in and didn't go to the side they thought she would she came right to me and my mother and gave us both a hug and said i'm here for you. and 2 minutes later the prosecutor stood up and said we are dropping all charges and like it to be stricken from all records. a couple hours later i walked out a free man. but never got a dime. and it cost me everything i owned. plus 260k if not more. and 24 years later there are still some people think i did it. the only thing i managed to keep was my house and land because i sold it to my sister for $1 before any real charges was filled. but i knew it was coming.
Despite injustices as this, corrupt (dirty) prosecutors and police investigators continue in their sociopathic behaviors. That police department HR departments cannot root out dirty applicants creates an immediate culpability in city liabilities.
I live in the Concord area. WBTV news reported this story, celebrating this man and Concord agreeing to a settlement. They didn't say how much the citizens of Concord were paying for this very apparent railroading job. The 1st person that the police approaches is the only focus they often persuit. The taxpayers get the bill, and the police & prosecutors pay NO price for destroying a person's life...End Qualified Ammunity.
I know all about the Alford Plea, that's what I took when I was facing criminal charges. My lawyer who I had paid out of my own pocket 20k did not even mention it was an option (I had to learn about it myself a week before my plea hearing) and he did not suggest I do it. He said "Just plead guilty and they promised no jail/prison time." In my heart was my little girl, and I was not going to allow the system to get the best of me because they wanted an easy out. I took the Alford Plea, the lady Judge didn't appreciate it but the Prosecutor didn't care because it was another win for them. It was a small battle that I won that day in a Zoom room full of lawyers and I was very proud of my determination under the circumstances.
How justice works for normal people when someone has an ax to grind: 1. Evidence knowingly not disclosed because it did not support the prosecution's claims... 2. Lock up an innocent person and let the real rapist remain free, either to avoid consequences or worse, to continue crimes... 3. Taxpayers uninvolved in the wrongful conviction and imprisonment foot the bill for 22 million; responsible "departments" send a letter of apology and are otherwise able to continue as usual.
Part of the reason the West Memphis 3 were offered the plea was that it prohibited them from suing. Part of the reason it was accepted by the 3 was it got Echols off death row. It was all 3 or none kind of deal.
1 of the other 2 had confessed to the crime, when nobody asked, so I'm surprised that Steve believes them. He confessed to the driver of a prisoner transport bus/van.
@@westernbody - That's a very good question. Now here's a very simple answer. We can't trust the state with that kind of power. The thing is that there are just far too many people who are convicted of crimes that they've never committed every year. One innocent person wrongfully convicted of a capital offence and executed by the state is one far too many. The US legal system is just far to fundamentally and inherently flawed to employ the death penalty.
I mean our stolen money (taxes) is what's paying it in the first place. It's not like this is coming out of the people I am against that caused this problem.
@@joshuahudson2170 shaming them publicly is a fine idea right now. I might be possible to find info on the case on the internet somewhere. Using the man's name, the city & the year was 1976...
@@strawpiglet You are correct. Legislation was enacted in 2015. Murphy v. IRS was 2007. See: FAQ FS-2023-26, Nov. 2023: Wrongful-incarceration-Faqs. Murphy was a circuit decision, cert denied, that said things not quantifiable (reputation, distress) were "gain", as opposed to medical or material damages. My prior response was censored by our shadowy overlords, possibly because it included a link to that dubious organization.
There is nothing more evil than someone in power misusing that power. Cops and prosecutors that just want to "win" and justice is a second thought (if thought about at all) are such people.
Thanks, Steve, for another interesting and educational video. I just discovered that here in Norway, we also have the right of 'ne bis in idem'. Disclaimer: I am not licenced to practice law in rhe Kingdom of Norway. I got my degree in history and economy. But law is very fascinating as well.
I know that it's probably not going to happen in this case. The prosecutors and the police officers are very likely well into their age. Retired may not even be around anymore but all of the people that are associated with his case on the state side that took part in making stuff disappear or not be available. Should have charges brought up against them for this and it should be a major crime for police officers prosecutors to hide evidence or destroy evidence and this does happen more often than people believe. I remember hearing about a case of a guy who lived in California worked in California, retired from California move to a believe it was a town in Ohio. There was a murder in that town that happened 10 years before he moved into the town, but they found a way to make a connection with him and refused to allow him to bring up the fact that he was at work when the murder happened and he could prove it through work records and the prosecutor went through the whole thing to suppress that evidence and they got a conviction he didn't live in that town. He had never been in that state until he moved there when he retired and he was in California at work at the time of the murder and he could prove it through work records but yet they wanted the conviction and they can make it happen. So they went through the whole process of having his employment records and any evidence to prove he was at work in California completely suppressed just to get a conviction
Why would someone withhold evidence? Because getting a conviction is more important then getting the right person. Anyone withholding evidence should go to jail period.
IMO There should be no need for a lawsuit here. It should be written in at a federal level, how much you get based on how old you were when you went in, how long you were in, and (possibly) what you were wrongly convicted of. There's no excuse for that to not be automatic.
Imagine being locked up at 21 and released as a 68 year old man. Never having the chance to have a family or enjoy the prime of your life. There is no amount of money.
Being 70 years old, if I was in this situation I would gladly spend what little life I had left in prison after gaining satisfaction for the theft of the first 44.
Getting $25 million is something but it's hollow with no accountability of those responsible. There really needed to be some accountability for the prosecutors that knew he was innocent but still put him in prison and stole half his life. It would've been his whole life if he never got out.
He should get a million for every year in prison, and all those who are still alive that had anything to do with his false imprisonment should be prosecuted... An apology is a joke, it's a slap in the face... I'd bet this guy lost family and friends over this that will never speak to him again over his false conviction... How much life can this guy have left at 68 years old...
They’re supposed to do a lot of stuff they don’t. Unfortunately for the state, it’s physically impossible for dead cops, judges, and DAs to violate one’s rights.
If he is convicted of drunk driving or even armed robbery in the future, can he get credit for timed served? Does he have a literal get-out-of-jail-free card?
I grew up in that area and if I am remembering correctly, there were rumors that it was a bunch of cops who did it. Granted this is just what people thought about 15 years after it happened.
It's a damn shame that hundreds and thousands of people that are incarcerated are still waiting for something like this to happen to them so they can get their true freedom unfortunately this goes on maybe it can be stopped some type of way now
@hughjass1835 nah, court is fake most of the time in my observation. I reported someone for likely killing an insane number of people and one of their old friends for raping a child & they laughed in my face in the police station, meanwhile those same people commit fraud and get fake rulings in their favor, fabricating crimes.
No system is perfect. If you strive for a wrongful conviction rate of zero, your conviction rate for the guilty will also plummet to near zero. We as a society strive for a balance. Purportedly a dozen guilty criminals let free for every innocent wrongfully locked up (based on there being 12 jurors in a criminal trial). But I often wonder what the true figures are.
How about this one: Canadian police warn that posting videos of alleged package thieves could be ‘violation' of their privacy 'You cannot post the images yourself because you have to remember, in Canada, we have a presumption of innocence,' the police officer warned By Alexander Hall Fox News
my buddy did 21 years for a double homicide he knew nothing about...and his buddy took that deal-got out and got nothing.......my buddy did not take that deal and was awarded $9 million when he got out. The system sucks!!
That is intense, in every scence of the word. I am almost left speechless? Wow this hurts Me? I understand one must sleep at night and stair into there eyelids. ......., God's law is written on the heart of every Man. Well I'm glad the Man has freedom to move forward and shape the world as He sees fit. Peace. Good luck Brother
Isn't there some kind of legal penalty for intentionally withholding and destroying evidence? Why are the people that did that not being held accountable?
The fact that law enforcement and prosecutors cannot always be trusted to do their job impartially and fairly is one of several reasons why capital punishment should be abolished. The executed can be exonerated, but not resurrected.
The prosecutors involved in misconduct should get the sentence they demanded for the innocent person. Sadly he's not the only one locked up in NC due to prosecutorial conduct. This just proves what I always say, the justice system doesn't care who did it, only that somebody gets locked up.
What a horribly sad story. Although the monetary reward sounds great, this guy probably has absolutely no idea how to manage money let alone this sum and he will most likely fall victim to vultures similar to so many prior lottery winners. Hopefully he can enjoy his remaining years
It's not a mindset, Steve. It's a lack of accountability. They knowingly locked up an innocent man. Knowing there's nothing he or anybody else is gonna do to them. They don't care it's not them. It's not their family that I locked up. And so why would they care?
Sadly the money will be gone in a few years. Attorney takes up to 30 or 40 percent, less attorney expenses which can add up depending on how creative his attorney billing department it. Then what's left will be gladly taken by his "friends", and investment people who will constantly show up.
I dunno if I was armed and somebody tried to Rob me,,,I’m not aiming for his ankles. A year later in some cozy courtroom should not make a bit of difference. But I suppose you would prosecute me for defending myself with deadly force, correct? instead, I should have given him the wallet and the pin number to the atm.
I remember watching an ABC made for TV movie, with Elizabeth Montgomery. 3 men robbed a bank, left her outside a the car as a getaway driver (she had no idea about the robberry). The guys shot all the ppl in the bank, got away, but later all 4 were caught. At trial, the 3 men told them the woman was the mastermind and the killer of the ppl in the bank. Since the guys all got pleas, they spent time in jail. The woman was charged and received the death sentence. Two minutes AFTER she was electrocuted, the 3 guys confessed. So, no. I am not for capital punishment. Although, I could make exceptions for a child molester or child r@pist.... and cop killers, serial killers, drunk drivers, etc...
Capital punishment is 100% justified in cases the evidence is overwhelming. Your on camera doing the crime do we really need to wonder if it's the right person.
I had been following the west memphis 3 for some time before it happened. I lived in Arkansas at the time. Now theres some fine down-to-earth folk in the south there, but heres also some real ignorant motherf----s there too. I was at A&P school when I heard one of them saying *"Did you hear the state just released three convicted satanic child murderers?"* I immediately stepped into the conversation and said "You mean they were actually let out? Well let me tell you about the whole story..." Fortunately I got them to believe me. Ive said it before and I'll say it again: A lie will circle the earth 4 times before the truth can even get itself out the door.
You take half a man's life away from him....25 million dollars doesn't even BEGIN to make up for that. What's a 68 year old man care about money...and the apology?... he'll have something to wipe his butt with in the bathroom. An instance where they thought they convicted the correct person but evidence later clears him would be one thing....this town MALICIOUSLY prosecuting him is quite another. Somebody needs to take the exonerated man's place in jail for this.
Cases like this always brings me back to the 1991 Waddell Buddhist temple shooting in Litchfield Park Arizona. Three of four men that were accused confessed after prolonged interrogation. They were actually hundreds of miles away. Phoenix at the time was not what it is now so something like this shocked the community and we were pissed when the truth came out. Google it on Wikipedia...short read.
Not 44 million? What about the mental anguish? What about the attorney's fees refund? What happened to those thugs that got him accused? What happened to the witnesses that helped push him into prison? They all got away with it? Wow!
Some of those states, especially the former slave states, doesn't require a unanimous jury to convict and so its common that innocent people are convicted.
Should have been 44 million. A million per year needs to be standard and non-negotiable, with a 10k additional for general relocation-related expenses. This needs to be, in part, taken as a penalty from the offending authorities' departments, to act as punitive discouragement, lest the authorities continue these activities unabated. The specific individual offenders need to be open to criminal prosecution as well, as knowing misconduct should NOT be covered under qualified immunity (which needs to end in general, with only a single-phase of qualification to minimize frivolous lawsuits)
WTF do you do with 25 million, after 44 years. They literally took everything that we describe, as being human (family, friends, etc.). Also, WTF is the point of an apology? It gives nothing; it abdicates taking any useful action. The measure of 1 billion would help to make me far more whole, than 25 million....
